The Great Game: The Aftermath
by nightwish-shadowstalker
Summary: Had this for ages and never posted it. I know it's seriously behind schedule, but hey, better late than never, right? Rated T for violence and swearing.


**A/N: This is late, I know. And I've no idea if his name actually is Gregory - sorry if it's not. Alix is my character, and I don't own any of the others.**

Testimony of Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade 24/09/2010

I think I'll miss them. Sherlock, Alix, John-I don't know how we'll do without them. I mean, we can cope with most things, but Sherlock is who I turn to for the stuff I'll never get in a billion years. He's a genius, and he's mad, and we need someone like him. Alix, well, she's brilliant. Even madder than Sherlock is, and just as intelligent. Show them both the same crime scene, and Sherlock will examine it, stand there and stare and explain slowly what happened, working it through by deduction. He works it out aloud-bounce ideas off people, walls, skulls, whatever happens to be in the room. Alix will examine it, fly on instinct, then she'll tell us who did it, which gang's behind it, how and why. If anyone asks how she knows, she'll just laugh and duck the question. I remember she asked me to take her to the shooting range we trained cadets on – she got double my score. When you meet them, you think, these two could do anything. When you know them, you think, they have done everything.

John? Hell of a lot smarter than I gave him credit for. Capable of dealing with Sherlock and Alix on a daily basis – didn't think that was even possible. Good actor too – Sherlock or Alix will make some comment that will completely throw the rest of us, look at John and go "Not good?" and John can just stand there and say, "Bit not good, yeah," with a completely straight face.

I started to rely on them, I think. Talking to Sherlock about the elements of a particularly obscure case, meeting Alix in the pub to chat psychology (she has a degree in it – I was surprised she found the time to do a degree in anything, never mind psychology), commenting on John's blog and wondering what even happened last night.

It didn't last.

"The Great Game" came along. About a week's worth of near misses and racing the clock. Then John disappeared. Sherlock and Alix were terrified, trying to hide it, and it really wasn't working. I distinctly remember them snapping at each other – it's the only time I can remember it happening. Their relationship – both with each other and with John – is practically symbiotic; I think, on some level, they are genuinely in love, even if they'll never admit it. It was just over coffee, but it ended up as a full-blown row, and a full-on fight too. It wasn't really fair on Sherlock, Alix is a black belt in various martial arts; I think she probably let him use her as a bit of a punch bag. I guess she knew he needed it, even if he didn't. By the time it was over, he had a split lip and I think she got a black eye. She went up to her room and smoked pot; he shot the wall twice and smoked three cigarettes. "Out of nicotine patches," was all he said when I looked at him. I left at that point, thinking that hopefully neither of them would be stupid enough, or reckless enough, or suicidal enough, to leave 221B. Hope springs eternal, they say.

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"Sherlock's disappeared. I know where and why. Swimming pool on Portobello Rd. Bring backup and WAIT. Alix"

So I did. I found Gregson and Brooker; we went to the pool and waited round the back. Gregson scrambled up the wall to a window, looked through and went white. Not just a fancy description; literally as white as the wall he was leaning on.

"Boss, you better see this."

I clambered up – with some difficulty – and looked through the window.

Right now, I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd never known Sherlock or Alix or John. I wish I'd never read that text. But I did. And now I get the consequences.

Sherlock and John were at one end of the room, Jim – Moriarty, the one we'd been chasing – at the other.

I can't remember anything about that room – colour of the walls, cubicle curtains, even the shadows aren't there.

All I remember are the little red dots, all over Sherlock and John.

Dancing fireflies. Moriarty's taunts. I couldn't hear them, I could see them.

And I thought: where is she?

Then I see a blur of movement – monochrome, black and white. Alix?

She runs into the room, in front of Sherlock. Skidding a little on the wet tiles.

It all slows down – first Alix, then the sharp double crack of a high-powered rifle. She jumps, twists in mid-air.

Then she falls.

Things slow down – right down. I watch John rushing to her aid, and Sherlock dropping the gun.

I watch Moriarty lose it. I watch, transfixed, as he turns and fires, apparently at random. The ammunition runs out, but he keeps trying, pulling the trigger with no result. Then he gives up, throwing the gun into the pool and crouching beside Alix. Crying.

I was completely lost for a minute. He's just had her shot, why does he care what happens? Why has he lost it? Why is he so angry at her imminent death?

He didn't want her shot, I realise. Why would he? He's her brother.

It's only now that they're side by side that I can see the resemblance. Same dark hair, same eyes. Same mentality about the world around them. Neither of them work well with others; they do what they want, and we have to fit around them.

Slowly, things start to make sense. The way she always referred to herself as the 'black sheep' of her family; the way she would never answer questions about her brother. I guess everyone – me included – just assumed he'd died and the memories were too painful for her. It explains an incident about two weeks earlier, when she came to mine in the middle of the night and asked to sleep on my sofa. She was terrified, her eyes wild. I ended up staying awake and talking to her, trying to understand what had happened to make her so afraid. All she would say was that something terrible was coming, that Jim was 'coming home'. I thought she'd taken something and was hallucinating. It had happened before.

Apparently not this time.

I clamber down and glance across at Gregson and Brooker. Both are watching me, waiting for orders.

Sometimes I wonder if they're even capable of independent thought, I really do.

I tell them to "secure the front entrance" and get an ambulance, pronto, while I go in and organise the Baker St. Collective.

I hear them both mutter "good luck" as I walk away, and I can't help thinking I'm going to need it.

Everyone turns to look at me as in walk in. It's not a nice feeling – like they're all depending on me. I don't know what to do, so I just tell them the ambulance is on its way and that we've caught the man who fired the shots. Moriarty laughs – harsh and cold. "Bloody hope you have." Then the laugh stops abruptly, replaced by more tears. Sherlock glares at me and then turns back to Alix. I move closer – it's worse than I thought, she's covered in red. So are the tiles. Little red squares on the floor. She coughs, spits blood and turns to look at me. "Greg?"

I nod. "I'm here."

She laughs, then coughs again. "I noticed. You got my text?"

"Yeah."

"So much for waiting, huh?" she says, still coughing and spitting blood. "Ugh. I'm going to murder Bracken when I get out of hospital. If."

"You'll be okay," Sherlock says quietly. "We've survived worse."

Alix raises her eyebrows. "Have we?" she asks, coughing again.

John smiles sadly and squeezes her hand. "You're being sarcastic, you're going to be fine." He turns and looks at the rest of us and says "Talk to her."

"What?" Jim says. He's still furious. I think of powder kegs. "How's that going to help?"

John sighs. "It might, it might not, ok? It might give her something to hang on to. So talk. What happened when you were kids? University? Anything."

Alix coughs again. "Still here, you know." She smiles weakly.

Jim sighs, scrubs his face and mutters something furious under his breath. But he agrees to talk. I think it's as much for his benefit as hers.

"Alix. Hey. Do you remember when we came to England? It was March, and it was freezing. We'd both expected England to be warmer, and we waited ages for Mark to show up. He couldn't work out if he was looking at the right people, so he just stood behind us and didn't say anything, just listening to us, because he was too embarrassed to ask us if we were the right kids." He laughs unexpectedly. "God, he was such an idiot. Like there'd be any other unchaperoned Irish teenagers on the dock. And we had seafood that first night we stayed with him and we both threw up because it was basically raw and he hadn't cooked it properly."

Alix smiles. "Yeah. We ended up getting a takeaway instead. God, he was hopeless."

Jim laughs again, this time like he's trying not to cry. "Yeah. Hopeless. Couldn't cook to save his life. I think you probably made all the edible stuff we ever ate in that house. Do you remember the time you tried to teach me to cook?"

She laughs softly. "Boom."

"The potatoes exploded in the microwave…Never again, you said." He crumples up. Part of me wants to help him, but he's beyond reach. Sherlock takes over.

"Remember the first time we met?" he asks. "Lestrade brought you to a crime scene in North London and I was already there. I said I didn't like being forced to work with some standard-issue Met detective who'd only get everything wrong and confuse things. You turned round and told me about the two men who'd committed the murder, said you'd seen it all before and told me to try and keep up." He smiles. "I'd been working on the idea that it was an isolated incident. That was humiliating."

Alix smiles, coughs again. "Sometimes you are wrong."

"That night we went out for Chinese, and the boy at the bar started trying to hit on you. And you broke his jaw and sat back down like nothing had happened. Lestrade didn't know whether to arrest you or to just laugh and run."

I can hear the wail of sirens outside. "They're on their way. You'll be alright," John tells her.

She just looks at him, eyebrows raised. He laughs. "Don't give me that look. I'm a doctor. Trust me."

The paramedics come in, lift her onto a stretcher and take her away, sirens screaming. John's in the ambulance with her, working with them to keep her holding on. Sherlock and Jim are with me, in the squad car, following behind. We're completely silent. What is there to say?

When we get to the hospital, we are curtly informed that Alix has been taken immediately into emergency surgery and probably won't be out for some considerable time, if at all. We end up waiting on plastic chairs outside the theatre: me, John, Sherlock and Jim, drinking crap vending-machine coffee, too wired on fear and caffeine to be calm. It's surreal. A police detective, a freelance genius, his blogger and their arch enemy. If it happened in a TV programme, it would be dismissed as unrealistic.

They say truth is often stranger than fiction.


End file.
